In the present day many techniques are available to deposit films including chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition and other techniques. In order to process complex structures such as multilayer films, depositing a series of layers within a lone process chamber may be useful. Deposition of certain materials such as metals may be performed using various sputtering or other physical vapor deposition techniques. For multilayer deposition this may entail the use of multiple different targets where the different targets are made of different materials. In some cases, ion beam sputtering may be used to sputter multiple different targets in order to deposit a multi-layer structure. This provides a flexible approach where a multilayer structure composed of a given combination of different materials may be deposited to the extent targets are available for the different materials.
Problems associated with known ion beam sputtering approaches include the ability to provide uniform coatings such as multilayer structures. Uniformity may be compromised by non-uniform extraction of an ion beam from an ion source used for ion beam sputtering, as well as non-uniform sputtering of material from a target or targets used to deposit a layer. Additionally, some techniques for multilayer deposition may entail changing of targets to deposit different materials. Excessive handling of targets during deposition of a multilayer structure in turn may generate defects in a final structure because of flaking and other contamination.
With respect to these and other considerations the present improvements may be useful.